Resumen de Dental Trade Cards XLVI
Ben Z. Swanson, Theodore P. Croll
In the same way that manufacturers and others "lifted" the images of United States presidents, vice presidents, and presidential candidates1 , other renowned people also had their celebrity status borrowed for commercial advertising purposes. In 1894, John T Milliken of St. Louis founded JNO T. MILLIKEN & CO MANUFACTURING CHEMISTS. Milliken gathered a staff of production men and chemists and produced an antiseptic called "Liquid Pasteurine," hoping to profit from the reputation of microbiologist/chemist Louis Pasteur, renowned for developing principles of fermentation, vaccination, and "pasteurization." Lambert Pharmacal, another St. Louis company was having good success marketing "Listerine," an antiseptic named for Joseph Lister, the renowned British surgeon who pioneered antiseptic surgery. Readers of this report may have rinsed theirs mouths with Listerine Mouthwash earlier today,more than 100 years after Joseph Lister's death. It was Milliken's intent to compete with Lambert's Listerine, with Liquid Pasteurine, which was also made in tablet form. Pasteur and Lister had become great pitchmen for these products, probably without any connection to the respective companies and as far as we know, with no remuneration for use of their names. It is possible that Louis Pasteur never knew about any Pasteurine products. Following a major stroke in 1894, the great scientist died in 1895, only one year after Milliken's business commenced.
We do know that Pasteur and Lister knew of each other's work. At a 70th birthday event for Pasteur, Lister said to his colleague, ''A.s a matter offa ct, there is no one living in the entire world to whom the medical sciences owe so much as they do to you... Thanks to you, surgery has undergone a complete revolution which has robbed it of its terrors and extended its efficacious powers almost without limit." (www.famousscientists.org/louis-pasteur/)
